Soft proton experiments supporting the development of astronomical X-ray instrumentation
Abstract
Orbital soft protons can severely degrade the performance of astronomical X-ray observatories. On the one hand, they may cause permanent radiation damage to X-ray detectors; on the other hand, they introduce an irreducible background component. Our low-energy grazing-incidence scattering setup provides experimental data for the validation of radiation transport simulations used in the assessment of future X-ray missions. Recent measurements indicate that a significant fraction of protons scattered from X-ray optics undergo charge exchange and therefore cannot be mitigated by magnetic diverters. In addition, we present initial proton-transmission measurements through a thin X-ray filter and compare them qualitatively with TRIM simulations. Quantitative measurements of energy loss and charge-exchange fractions, together with comparisons with TRIM and Geant4, are planned. In this publication, we present the upgraded experimental setup together with commissioning measurements for grazing-incidence scattering and proton transmission through thin X-ray filters.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{diebold2026soft,
title = {{Soft proton experiments supporting the development of astronomical X-ray instrumentation}},
author = {S. J. Diebold and B. Heß and F. Pfeifle and L. Ph. H. Schmidt and C. Tenzer and T. Wildfang and D. Ferreira and M. Freyberg and S. Massahi and D. Paredes-Sanz and E. Perinati and A. Santangelo and B. Stelzer and S. Svendsen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.29743},
eprint = {2608.29743},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29743},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Soft proton experiments supporting the development of astronomical X-ray instrumentation
AU - S. J. Diebold
AU - B. Heß
AU - F. Pfeifle
AU - L. Ph. H. Schmidt
AU - C. Tenzer
AU - T. Wildfang
AU - D. Ferreira
AU - M. Freyberg
AU - S. Massahi
AU - D. Paredes-Sanz
AU - E. Perinati
AU - A. Santangelo
AU - B. Stelzer
AU - S. Svendsen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.29743
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29743
AB - Orbital soft protons can severely degrade the performance of astronomical X-ray observatories. On the one hand, they may cause permanent radiation damage to X-ray detectors; on the other hand, they introduce an irreducible background component. Our low-energy grazing-incidence scattering setup provides experimental data for the validation of radiation transport simulations used in the assessment of future X-ray missions. Recent measurements indicate that a significant fraction of protons scattered from X-ray optics undergo charge exchange and therefore cannot be mitigated by magnetic diverters. In addition, we present initial proton-transmission measurements through a thin X-ray filter and compare them qualitatively with TRIM simulations. Quantitative measurements of energy loss and charge-exchange fractions, together with comparisons with TRIM and Geant4, are planned. In this publication, we present the upgraded experimental setup together with commissioning measurements for grazing-incidence scattering and proton transmission through thin X-ray filters.
ER -